Do Me The Honor
by HiddenFancy
Summary: Izzie has accused Alex of getting her fired. Is there hope for this couple yet, or is their marriage doomed to fail?
1. Prologue

_Isobel Stevens, I love you. You know I do. But… you hurt me. _

It was just something he did. It was the way he coped. He had to keep going, moving forward, and plunging ahead. The hard features that marred his face these days were irreversible; he was a mask of emotion, and mostly everyone at Seattle Grace was buying it. He had gotten colder. He had gotten harsher. Those damn walls were up again, and curse the sky, the rain that fell ever constantly, if they ever came down again. That's right, Alex Karev was done.

It was so much easier to admit defeat. Either that or he was going to have to get used to disappointment. If she didn't want him, if she didn't _need_ him, if she had nothing else in her life to live for, then he would leave it. He wasn't just _that_ guy. The guy who chased after the girl, begged for her approval, for understanding. She had made him believe that she knew him, but if this was where they were at, if she really and truly believed he would throw her to the sharks, then that bond, this _marriage, _was all just a scam. _And I'm an idiot for not seeing it coming._

There was no light to the halls of Seattle Grace. There was no fun. Laughter, well, it was rare. Meredith was trying to keep things together and hold the walls up strong, but everyone else may as well have been setting fire to the building's support. Alex was no exception. _Today_ was no different. He was at work, four thirty in the AM to anyone who honestly cared. He was tired, but hell, that excuse had long since been exhausted: _everyone _was tired, _everyone _had something going on in their lives, everyone just kept moving along.

Only, this morning in Seattle Grace would play out a little differently.

* * *

His breath came in huge gasps as he took the last step, taking a moment to catch his breath as the automatic doors drew open. A few minutes later, he was pulling out files, absently searching, not really caring which case he got landed with this time.

"You're late."

"I know." His voice was dull.

"Sorry Karev, you're stuck in the pit until we can get someone to cover.'

"Right."

Without a look back, he abandoned his post, shoving the file he had retrieved right back into the holder. Miranda stared him down for the briefest of moments, her eyes searching. Alex merely shot her an overly wide grin before stepping past her. Alright, so maybe _almost_ everyone was buying him, minus the analytical Nazi. Alex was done with fighting for surgeries; in fact, he was done with fighting altogether.

Almost as soon as he stepped into the room, he had to stop. The room was spinning with chaos. There had been an apparent accident: two school buses colliding, one of which had been overturned and landed in a ditch. Having only had roughly three hours of sleep in the on call room, this did nothing to improve his mood. He set off after Owen's wave anyway, quickly moving to the nearest occupied bed and going through through the protocol, the one that had by now, been ingrained into his very skull.

"Am I going to be alright?" The kid had to easily be at least ten, Alex noted. Black haired and scrawny, there were shards of glass and cuts littered across his tiny frame; he looked lost, and was looking to his Resident for words of comfort.

"Gotta run some tests, kid, but I think everything should be okay." He spoke carefully, leaning over the boy to TPR him just as his pager went off in his lab coat. "Dammit, what the _hell?"_ His voice was much louder then he intended as he fumbled to pull out the little pager, brown eyes narrowing against the message. "Sorry, bud." He added, realizing his mistake. The words, however, paged directly from Meredith, made him stare. Every reflex of his seized up, the senseless movement around him ignored.

_Izzie's looking for you._

_**ooc: **_My first fanfic ever, really, so I would really appreciate some constructive criticisms, or even just some simple reviews. If there's enough interest, I will definitely continue with fully fleshed lengthier chapters. xD Need something to get us through this hiatus, right?


	2. Sometimes It Just Hurts To Care

_**Author's Note: **_I really apologize for the long drag between this chapter and the last. I admit, for awhile I just sort of lost hope and interest for Alex and Izzie. When the news about Katherine Heigl came out, I was finished with it all. But I came across this the other day, and well… here's some more. Review's are key for me to continue. It's like oxygen right about now. :) And I'm sorry for the depressing chapter, but you know how it is… these two definitely aren't all bright and shiny. Also, sorry for shortness. I promise they will get longer over time!

For the first few seconds, he just stood there in numb shock. What was he supposed to do? Why was she here? And despite the way his heart thudded in his chest like a stampede of wild horses, all Alex could find himself able to do was turn back to the small boy and continue treating him. The only sign that registered that a change of emotion had befallen him was the subtle shake of his hands as he secured the bandages and paged Dr. Robbins. For now, he needed breathing room.

Two hours later, and he was scrubbed in on a simple appendectomy with Bailey. He'd been doing well at avoiding everything and anyone for the majority of his shift, but now Meredith was at the scrub room window, rapping her knuckles for him. 'Dr. Bailey, would you mind letting me practice my sutures?" She looked up at him squarely, eyes narrowing. She knew what she must be thinking. Why would Alex Karev, the previously always arrogant intern now surgical Resident want to waste his precious time on suturing up a patient he'd hardly even shown interest for in the first place? His brown eyes looked over pleadingly, ignoring the look he knew Meredith was sending him. He offered out his head where she gingerly placed the needle holder and thread in his palm. As she tore off her gloves and mask, he thought he heard her mutter something that sounded uncannily like, "Don't ask Miranda, you should learn by now not to ask."

And so after the slowest suture on the face of the planet, Alex was done and cleaning his arms off. The door snapped open, and he instantly raised his head, preparing for the worst. It was only Jackson.

"Good surgery?"

Alex shrugged, not saying anything. His eyes were focused on the patient being wheeled out of the operating room, losing track of the times he'd scrubbed his arms, and just giving up, going with it.

"I think…I think Meredith is looking for you."

Alex sighed and grumbled to himself. Finally, he spoke to the competition. "_Everyone's_ looking for me right now. Kind of just want to lay low and live it up for awhile, know what I mean?"_._ His voice was bitter, memories reminding him of all the phone calls he'd sent to Izzie, the places and people he'd tried to touch base with. Why, in God's name, should he be so damn easy to track down? He wouldn't be. He saw from the corner of his eye Jackson grin alongside him, and for a moment, if only brief, the thought struck him that the two could possibly be something that resembled friends one day. _One day._

Just like that he was out the door, blowing out a sigh and hitting the Resident lounge as quietly and as under cover as he could get. He had just managed to sort his things together, throw on his jacket and grab his bag, he'd made it down the elevator and peace, and he was just a second away from walking out the door of Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital, when a familiar sounding female voice made him grow tense and come to a complete stop.

"Alex!"

He stopped, staring blankly out at the parking lot. It had just started to rain lightly. Distantly, he counted the steps it would take for him to reach his car.

"Alex, please. Look at me."

Izzie had to be at least a few feet away from him. She sounded exactly as he remembered. Her voice was calm, if not a little shaky, and just as he heard the step of her sneaking another space closer, on reflex he took another forwards.

She spoke again. "I'm sorry I left. It wasn't… I didn't mean to leave _you_. I had to leave. After George, after this, after everything… I had to leave Seattle." She trailed off and he waited to see if she would say any more. All the while his body screamed at him to walk away, to leave her standing alone the way she had left him. "But I came back, Alex. It's all over and I want to make this right. You… you still love me, don't you?"

And just like that, the shrug rolled off his shoulders and he took a step into the pouring rain.


	3. Oh, And By The Way

_**Author's Note: **_It worked! Thanks guys. It's good to know there are so many A/I fans still around enough to get me back into the game. This chapter might be a little confusing as I sort of combined and merged a bunch of random things I had written, but I hope the length of it makes up for the wait. Please leave your comments and reviews so that I can keep going!

Izzie was back, and by what he'd seen and gathered from the talk of the hospital, she was back for good. Hired, more like. A member of the staff. Scrubbing in and talking to patients with a storage space in the lounge. People were welcoming her back, calling her name down the halls and commenting on her hair.

And he was avoiding her.

It was simple. She wasn't a part of his life anymore, they were no longer together. Two separate bodies connected by a string of promises written down on paper, promises that meant crap. It was hard to stay focused. He didn't know whether to be angry for her determination, or feel relieved that she cared. But if she cared, she wouldn't have left in the first place, a reminder that he was drilling into his head over and over.

For days he felt nothing. There was her voice, her quick footsteps, but he wasn't eating lunch with them anymore. That left little reason for him to care and fewer chances for her to find him.

"Alex."

He heard her speak down the hall on the east wing, her voice careful. She was testing him, treating him like a dog that might run at the slightest sign of danger, staring straight ahead at his retreating form. Nothing, not even a 'hello'. He pretended that her voice was the sound of a crying patient or a doctor calling someone else.

At lunch, he felt her watching him again, even as he grudgingly retrieved his food and sat at another table, alone. He'd started out alone, hell, he could do it again. Who needed a crew of people who pretended to care about you to get through a half hour break? Not Alex Karev. He was beginning to think he needed nobody.

The day couldn't have dragged on any slower. He was just getting out of surgery, ripping the stained gloves from his shaking hands. They had lost the boy; there wasn't anything that could have been done. Alex saw her adamant silhouette through the looking glass window, and for a moment their eyes locked. His gaze turned forward instantly, running his arms under the water, focusing only on the mess they had left in the operating room. Soon after, Jackson was beside him and a conversation picked up; he was completely unaware of the dilemma going on outside the door.

"He won't, I know he won't."

Izzie sighed, her body hitting lightly against the door. From a distance away, and through many glass surfaces, they were looking at the oblivious features of her ex husband.

'He _will_, give him time.' Meredith bit her lip, watching as Alex conversed with several doctor's in the scrub room.

"What, has he still not said a word? I gave him my surgery, I thought-" Cristina was instantly hushed just as soon as she arrived on the scene, looking shocked, but instantly understanding.

'Look at him, Meredith. That, that right there,' All three of them turned to look as Izzie spoke; Christina's brows shot up. "The way he's looking right now, _I_ did that to him."

She felt it now, the regret. She had left him. Alone, in the dust, cold. After everything she had known about him, his past; after all, Alex was not a man to trust. Had her 'I care about you''s meant nothing? No, it had. It had meant something.

"You okay, man?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Alex's tone was defensive and taut, ready to fire without a second's notice. People had been asking him the same question all day and he was growing tired of it.

"Well, your wife is kind of here.'

"Ex wife." Alex corrected hotly, feeling his hands tighten into fists under the stream of water.

There was a pause in which neither of them spoke. Alex sighed, shaking his head with a smirk. "I just scrubbed in on an open heart surgery. You think I honestly care that she's here?' He laughed and it sounded all wrong as he quickly moved forward to dry his now shaking hands. 'Nice try, Avery."

It was eleven 'oclock and Joe's was packed. He shouldn't be here because it was the obvious place to be found, where she would look if she really tried to find him. Did he want to be found? His shoulders heaved and fell lightly as he ordered another drink, staring at the palms of his hands, tired and sore from holding back a retractor all day. Alex still couldn't quite work out how he felt about Izzie's sudden return, didn't want to take the time to ponder over what she might want. In all honesty, it just hurt way too damn much, and he wasn't in the mood or even functional enough to take another emotional breakdown, something that would very likely send him to his knees in agony.

There was no other explanation for the way his body suddenly seized other than the fact that he_ knew_ who had just taken a seat beside him. The stool creaked and swung; very accidentally, he felt a knee tap lightly into his. Alex swallowed, breath held.

"Right where I'd thought you'd be. Some things just don't change, do they?" He didn't reply, but remained focused on the back of the bar, at the many bottles lined up against the mirrored walls.

She exhaled. "Alex…"

Why was it that he couldn't move or breathe or show any damn clue that he was alive? "What do you want?" Harsh words finally pushed through his lips, so much that nobody could really tell that he had even spoken.

"Can we talk?" Her voice was stronger now; apparently his reply had given her confidence.

"You seem to be doing a good job of it on your own." His snappy retort was predictable and petty, definitely not the best he could do. _She_ had been the best he'd done, the best he'd ever had. An image of a night months ago, where he'd broken down and told her he couldn't survive without her was just a mere memory now.

"Fine, I'll do the talking." She paused as if waiting for him to give permission. When he did nothing more than simply take a sip of his vodka tonic and stare straight at Joe who was serving a bunch of rowdy men in the corner, Izzie spoke, "I messed up, Alex. I left you when I was unstable, emotionally sick, and I didn't tell you about it. I assumed you had sold me out to the Chief and I realize now that I was wrong. Stupid, selfish, _wrong._ I made a mistake. I got scared and I ran and I regret it so _so_ much. I should have never left you."

She sighed and surveyed the profile of him, wishing he could give her something, anything. Even so much as a glance. "I love you."

"Hey hey, Michelle!" Alex's voice broke her reverie, calling out over the crowd as he waved down a pretty brunette. The girl's eyes looked over in curiosity. "You free tonight?" The girl nodded and sauntered over, making her way fluidly through the sea of people before stopping squarely in front of the man who was now blatantly ignoring her. Alex smiled and stood up, not even bothering to turn back and glance at Izzie before downing the remainder of his drink and grabbing his jacket to join the scantily clad younger woman.

It felt like her gut was sinking, something hard and hallow falling to the bottom of her stomach to act as a weight, the weight of what she had done to him.

Alex and Michelle made their way to the exit as she watched. Izzie closed her eyes and tried not to let her emotions get the best of her. She wanted to play dirty, and yet she wanted to give him the space he needed, the time to accept that she was back and not leaving.

Without making the decision to, she found herself jumping off the stool and taking off after them, her pace quick and precise. She made a beeline for his back, following the pair halfway through the bar until they almost reached the door.

"Dr. Karev!" Her voice rung out powerfully in the commotion as the room quickly hushed in confusion.

Izzie watched as he stopped. She knew someone calling him Doctor in the bar would make him question her voice, and only that would have the power to make him turn fully around to see her. Standing there like an idiot in the middle of the crowd, she looked around at everyone staring and blushed. Alex searched and found her face, giving her a 'what the hell' look which she knew wouldn't last much longer before he turned around for good and got nasty with his nurse bitch.

"Alex, I'm having your child."

She said it without truly thinking of the consequences, out of sheer need for him to _look_ at her. His jaw tightened, his eyes blazed, and the woman with her arm enclosed around his delicately untangled herself from him, apologized, and took off.

Izzie continued, ignoring the wowed expressions from the surrounding people and the way the room couldn't decide if they should clap or whistle.

"I'm having _our_ child. My cancer mets have shrunk down almost completely, I'm out of the woods, I feel healthy and ready." She smiled with the knowledge that she actually meant these words, ignoring the jarring expression on his face.

"And I'm going to see a fertility specialist tomorrow."


	4. Playing Dirty

"You're going to what?"

Alex had stopped in his tracks, surveying Izzie from the distance between them at Joe's. She had just made the insanely stupid confession that she was having his child and despite the anger he still had deep inside of him, there was also an inner longing rising to the surface. _"This isn't how we were… this isn't how we were supposed to make a baby."_ Okay, so he'd thought about it. Once or twice. The idea of having a baby with Izzie had crossed his mind on several occasions, but for the most part life got in the way, cancer being one of the top contender's.

He felt as Michelle quietly excused herself but he could not bring himself to even look at her, brown eyes trained so completely on the blond still in the bar while he was halfway out the door. Closing the steps between them, Alex carefully approached her. "What the hell, Iz?" The pet name came flowing out of his mouth again with such ease that he hadn't even noticed.

"We're still married, aren't we?" She asked him like she was daring him to deny her. No they had never signed divorce papers, but that still didn't mean… "We're still married, Alex, and you…," She paused as if trying to bring something back to the forefront of her memory. "You snooched in a cup for me. For me and for us. So I'm going to a fertility specialist to get those eggs re-implanted. I'm going to have our kid, Alex." She stated again, waiting for the inevitable ball to drop. You just didn't come out and say this kind of stuff to Alex Karev, especially not when he was in one of his 'moods'. Of course she knew he had every right to be, but blatantly showing off his sexual adventures with that whore? He was now just sinking as low as she.

"You're such a liar, Izzie. Those eggs are not just for you to decide what to do with them, okay? Those are _ours_. Not yours." He took a step closer to her so that their faces were inches apart. Izzie could practically feel the rage, a mixture of his hurt and undeniable abandonment radiating off of the edges of his body. She closed her eyes and tried to take him in, as if being this close to him after months apart could somehow allow her to remember what it felt like to be in her husband's presence. She'd missed him way more than she would ever like to admit. It was almost embarrassing to realize how much she had taken him for granted. Isobel Stevens was not one who liked to be proven wrong, but she had this time and she was willing to serve her penance. Anything, whatever she had to do to get Alex back in her arms where he belonged.

"So is that a no you won't join me to the appointment, or…?" She tried to interject, whispering softly because people were beginning to stare. Even at the hospital she had always managed to attract some form of gossip, so it really wasn't much of a change here at Joe's tonight. However Alex seemed to be of the belief that the place for this conversation was not here. "You show up after months to tell me you want to get knocked up and start a family? Jesus, you really _are _a lunatic, Iz." He accused, still shaking his head and trying to refrain from snapping any further. Turning to walk away, he shook his head. "I'll see you later."

Izzie wasn't sure what to do. Within a week's time she was officially granted her hospital privileges back. The Chief, now past his time of stress and by what she had heard from the rumour mill drinking struggles, had even given her a personal apology for the cold and impersonal way in which he had been forced to dismiss her. The one thing she didn't have going for her right now was a home. Seeing how her old place was where her hateful ex-husband still lived (the fact that he had left the trailer still made her heart ache a little) was not exactly an option. As such, she had rented out a cheap apartment across from the hospital. It was only a five minute walk, two if she was running, and for the most part she was getting by okay. Her game plan was that once Alex saw that she was here to stay, and not just for some silly game of cat and mouse he would eventually warm up to her. But sometimes she worried. Late at night while she laid awake in bed staring up at the ceiling, she would sometimes cry because she missed her old life.

How had she managed to get herself here in such a short space of time? It seemed like only yesterday she'd been on her way to becoming a successful and brilliant surgeon, and then George died. Everything after that just sort of snowballed. She lost herself for awhile and couldn't even bring herself to appreciate her husband the way he needed her to in such a torturous time in their lives. She'd relied on him for support without hardly offering him anything in return. The merger had been another added stress to the whole ordeal. The chaos and competition forced her to come back to work before she'd even been ready, forced her to start rivalries with residents who she probably shouldn't have given the time of day in the first place, and then – her life was changed in relatively a few short seconds flat. She'd messed up. She'd made a mistake, a catastrophic mistake that almost cost an innocent woman her life. The result? Isobel Stevens had been fired. She'd left him with a note. A _note_. Izzie tried to close her eyes and remember what she'd written in the note, but at the time she had been crying so hard she barely could keep her eyes open. She wondered if Alex had been able to pick up on the subtle tear stains on the paper. He'd probably been too upset himself to notice.

The blond sighed and stretched out her legs. She'd left the window open just slightly for some fresh air, and also because she secretly wanted to hear the soothing sounds cars as they passed, of ambulance sirens whirring in the not too far off distance. There was even a certain something in the air that Izzie recognized as Seattle but could not put her finger on. It was this that gave the final touch she needed to fall asleep, thankful to finally be back home where she belonged.


End file.
